SANTA ROSA — The Santa Rosa Community Health Centers recently closed its A Street Clinic, which served as a primary care and outreach center for the homeless, the medically underserved and underinsured, who will be transitioned to the recently opened Brookwood Health Center.

The A Street Clinic, which was started 10 years ago as a collaboration between Catholic Charities and the Santa Rosa Family Residency Program, evolved into a busy, 20-hour per week clinic serving hundreds of patients every month. Those patients will now be treated at the Brookwood Center, a much larger space that can accommodate more people and was opened late last year.

Santa Rosa Community Health Centers, an eight-location network of Federally Qualified Health Centers, integrated the A Street Clinic in 2008, expanding services at the time to include partnerships with Sonoma County Mental Health and the Task Force for the Homeless.

Catholic Charities recently asked the clinic to vacate the space in order to accommodate its own expansion of services, according to the health centers. With the Brookwood Center now fully operational, the health centers expect to meet the demand at that location.

“Our leadership team and board of directors has decided that we will not look for a new location for the A Street Clinic,” the health centers said. “We are confident that we are able to absorb all A Street referrals at the new Brookwood Health Center as we continue to address the comprehensive health care needs of our most underserved populations.”

The newest center, at the corner of Brookwood and Sonoma avenues, was funded by a $650,000 annual federal grant to expand health care services for homeless people in Sonoma County, as well as a one-time $300,000 grant from the Sonoma County Medical Services Program.

The A Street Clinic was significantly smaller than the Brookwood Center, and staff had famously converted storage closets into patient rooms to accommodate the influx of patients.

The Brookwood Center is expected to provide primary care and mental health services for some 3,400 patients in its first year, according to the health centers, which had annual revenues of $24.7 million in 2011, making it the fifth biggest nonprofit organization in the North Bay.

The partnerships with Catholic Charities, Sonoma County Mental Health Services, in addition to the the Drug Abuse Alternatives Center, the Petaluma Health Center, West County Health Centers, and Sonoma County’s Continuum of Care network, will continue at the new Brookwood Center.

Santa Rosa Community Health Centers is also opening a small satellite clinic co-located with the Sonoma County Mental Health Services. Additionally, the group of health centers is moving ahead with designs for a new Roseland Children’s Health Center, which should be opened by August. A process is under way to determine were to relocate the new center.

The Roseland Children’s Health Center currently provides care for over 2,000 kids who would otherwise have nowhere else to go. The health centers were awarded a $500,000 grant to renovate or replace the Roseland Center to expand services by 60 percent. The grant allows for 2 years to complete the project.

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